Asymmetrical Relations in Audiovisual Translation in Brazil: A Corpus-based investigation of Fixed Expressions

Abstract

This study aims to investigate, in dubbed and subtitled versions of the films Madagascar (2005) and Ice Age (2002), how fixed expressions (Moon, 1998) are translated in dubbing and subtitling methods and to examine how employing domestication and foreignisation (Venuti, 1995) can undermine or reinforce the asymmetrical relations, here defined by globalisation as discussed by Venuti (1998) and Cronin (2003, 2009). The analysis is carried out through reference and parallel corpus (Baker, 1995). Final results show that subtitling, rather than dubbing, is more prone to adopt foreignising strategies with regard to the translation of fixed expressions. Additionally, there have been identified, in the subtitled versions of the corpus, translation instances that deliberately move away from target language fixed expressions.

Domestication and foreignization in interlingual subtitling: A systematic review of contemporary research

“…Only five studies presented statistical analysis: Espindola and Vasconcellos (2006); Judickaitė (2009); Matielo and Espindola (2011); Ameri and Ghazizadeh (2014); and Soares (2020). The other studies selected examples and drew conclusions.…”

“…Linguistic Features/Terminology Espindola and Vasconcellos (2006) dialects, toponyms, anthroponyms, forms of entertainment, local institutions, food and drinks, scholastic reference Matielo and Espindola (2006) toponyms, anthroponyms, forms of entertainment, fictional characters, local institutions, slang Fong (2009) vulgarisms, dialect Judickaitė (2009) names of kitchen occupations and food, dishes and beverages Petillo (2010) expletives, names of geographical references, idiomatic expressions Mével (2011) dialects, vulgarisms, slang Minutella (2012) code switching, ethnolects, names of dishes, geographical references, television shows, vocatives Ameri and Ghazizadeh (2014) vulgarisms Pirus (2015) military register, acronyms, idiomatic expressions, vulgarisms, slang Sadeghpour and Omar (2015) linguistic jokes Erguvan (2016) brands, television shows, idiomatic expressions Chang (2017) websites, social media, religious and cultural values, political slogans Gao (2017) neologisms Klinger (2017) characters' names, idiomatic expressions, linguistic jokes Özbudak (2017) address forms, greetings, idiomatic expressions, religious expressions Boito and Caetano (2018) idiomatic expressions, linguistic jokes Unsal (2018) geographical references, food and beverage names, professions, public and military institutions, idiomatic expressions Soares (2020) fixed expressions…”

“…They included the audience and viewers as factors in the analysis, examining the impact of the translation on them, and their role in the subtitle processing. However, they did not present data collected directly from viewers to backup this discussion (Howell, 2004;Szarkowska, 2005;Espindola & Vasconcellos, 2006;Ramière, 2007;Fong, 2009;Petillo, 2010;Mével, 2011;Gottlieb, 2014;Tanase, 2014;Pirus, 2015;Erguvan, 2016;Babatunde, 2017;Chang, 2017;Ozbudak, 2017;Soares, 2020). Matielo and Espindola (2011) stated that their study "did not cover audience response so as to allow for further speculation.…”